I'm short, yappy and..... oh, what was that bright shiny thing that just flew past?

Monday, July 14, 2008

I'm sorry, but the short waving lunatic is me.

Glasses. I have glasses because things in the distance are generally blurry - unless of course I am wearing my glasses and then they are crystal clear. I have had glasses for over ten years now. I think I am up to my third pair and the ones I currently wear I bought in Austria. Unfortunately I am one of those people who walks into the optometrists and I seem to have this uncanny knack of being drawn to the most expensive pair of frames in the joint. Every. Single.Time. I then will proceed to convince myself that I'm getting good value if I'm aiming for a dollar a day's wear out of them.

Sigh. I reckon my brain could justify slaughtering a bear if I decided I wanted pink snuggy bear skinned insoles. ('First we dye the bear, then we kill the bear and, besides, what bear wouldn't want to be immortalised as insoles?')

Even though I will spend small fortunes on frames, I still live in a state of delusion that my eyesight is fine, and it is not until I put my glasses on that I realise just how much more clearly I would see the world if I were to wear them at all times. (So if you ever see a girl who, after she puts on glasses excitedly claiming, 'Wow, would you look at that!' Please be nice to me, because I am not very smart.)

There is, however, I believe a case to be argued that you don't necessarily want to see everything that is going on around you. But that's only a little case. In the last two days there have been two reasons as to why I should have glasses firmly planted on my face at all times.

Case #1

Last night I was chopping up pumpkin and I was removing pumpkin intestines from my chopping board to my rubbish bin. As I dropped the intestines into the tin, some pumpkin seeds missed and hit the floor. I bent over and scooped up one, two, three pumpkin seeds and put them in the bin. I then stood up and looked down, saw one on my sock and thought, 'Oops, missed one,' and bent down to pick it up and put it in the bin.

Except when I bent down I saw that it wasn't a pumpkin seed at all.

It was my toe poking out through a hole in my sock.

I'm not sure whether to put this down to poor eyesight, or to just being an idiot.

And then reason number two blazed into my life this morning, in all its glory

For the last few months a shiny new BMW four wheel drive has been parking outside our office about twice a week. And every time I see it I think, 'Oh that's Blah Blah-de-Blah, must go and say hi.'

Now Blah Blah-de-Blah is the son of great friends of my parents. He is the same age as me and I've known him practically all my life. I don't know him particularly well, but well enough to always say hi and each of us download what our parents and siblings are doing whenever we see each other - which is about once a year.

I have been wanting to speak to him about a work matter for a couple of weeks and I said in the office that next time anyone spotted his car to point it out, and I would go and have a yarn.

So this morning Blah Blah-de-Blah parked outside the office. I was standing against the heater with my back against the wall looking straight out of the office to the street. And I said, 'Great, there's Blah Blah-de-Blah!' And I gave him a great big enthusiastic happy wave.

And he gave me a great big wave and a huge smile back.

Which was great.

Except for one thing.

It wasn't him.

I had just waved at a complete stranger.

He was the same size, had the same shape, the same haircut, even the same mannerisms.

Just not quite the same face.

I think, 'You fucking idiot!' Was the collective chorus from the others in the office, and they then delighted in the fact that I proceeded to climb underneath the desk and curl up intotiny wee ball to marinate in my shame.

Oh, they laughed at me. How they laughed at me. And then they laughed at me some more.